Friday Music Video: Beck – Loser
Yeah, one of those weeks. So crank this puppy up and plan on regrouping over the weekend.
What is the next Wave?
For some time, I’ve been looking for the next compelling thing in social media sites. For that next development that transforms the way we interact, that re-envisions forums, chat, photo galleries, articles, etc; in fact a redefinition of the way in which we communicate online altogether. For the past couple years, I’ve watch as vBulletin, my favorite forum software, basically did minor incremental releases, remaining essentially the way it was in 2001. Wordpress has done better, yet still, the fundamental blog/cmslite experience remains pretty…
Google Sidewiki – Because we haven’t made your life hard enough yet…
Let’s say you own a business. It’s a small business, and you’ve tried very, very hard to build it into something. Along the way, like most businesses, there have been bumps, but for the most part, you’ve got a bunch of customers who love you. Then one day, right in front of your door, someone puts up a huge billboard, and on it, they will allow anyone with anything to say about your business to put up whatever they want. …
Has the Public Library Killed Book Publishers?
As I was in the local public library picking up a little something to read on Saturday, I realized there was an interesting parallel between that and Internet file sharing. What does the library do after all; it loans books for free to people. The same books which both publishers and authors base their entire commercial livelihood. Thus if the picture the music industry draws of the dire future for music if file sharing is allowed continue were really a…
Back to the Future – The Bestseller Roach Motel
I was listening to the New York Times Book Review Podcast the other morning and co-host Jennifer Schuessler made an astounding comment. She looked at the best seller list today, and then looked back 16 years ago to when James Patterson released his first Alex Cross novel, Along Came a Spider, and found the list contained virtually the same authors. From her article: The list was equally brand-name-heavy back in 1993, when Patterson’s first Alex Cross novel, “Along Came a…
Special Moments
Nothing beats the joys of parenthood. Absolutely nothing… For example: Darling daughter #1(dd#1) throws a box of crayons into my wife’s brand new (under 2 weeks) dryer machine. Wife has nervous breakdown. I spend the rest of the night chiseling crayon out of the drum with a screwdriver. I get down to Washington on a business trip to find my books were removed from my suit case and replaced with a few well chosen Webkinz. I call home from Washington and…
Alligator Bait
“When you’re up to your ass in alligators, just stop a moment and ask yourself why you decided to drain the swamp in the first place.” – Lyndon B. Johnson Thinking outside the box, now might be a good time for me to start a new business in alligator skin accessories. The last couple weeks have been *that* busy. We launched a new set of servers for the Splitcoaststampers.com site last week, and as with all things on massive sites…
Newspaper Tipping Point: Current Events
My 11 yo daughter called me while I was driving home last night, to ask me to pick up a newspaper so she could start her weekly current events assignment for school. Without thinking, I told her “you don’t want a newspaper for that, you need to get the information of the web where it’s up to date.” Now I’ve worked with newspapers on and off since my days atthe University of Vermont, and I worked for Atex where we…
WordPress 2.8.4 – Update Now
The folks at Automattic released a security update for WordPress today due to a very specific bug: …a specially crafted URL could be requested that would allow an attacker to bypass a security check to verify a user requested a password reset. As a result, the first account without a key in the database (usually the admin account) would have its password reset and a new password would be emailed to the account owner. While this isn’t an incredibly nasty…
When Your Product Stinks…
I was using a product the other day and it was a real disaster. It prompted me to think that somewhere, someone was showing up to an office where their task was to market this peice of crap. From that thought, this list: If your product stinks, If your product stinks, you won’t engage customers, you’ll stalk them. If your product stinks, the only thing your customers will engage in with you is arguments. If your product stinks, customers won’t…